Rejection...sigh...what a horrible word, isn't it?

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

Got my first rejection. It was for punctuation. Yeah I know my grammar isn't where it was 30 years ago when it was all still fresh in my head, so I shouldn't let it bother me. But seeing that word hits you right in the stomach doesn't it.

WellI can only hope to do better next time!
Especially is I enable grammarly again!

 

[sr71plt]

I think that happens mostly for not using U.S. style in punctuating quotes. Do you have your periods and commas inside the close double quotes? It might be as simple a matter as changing that. That and make sure all of your sentences are ending with terminal punctuation. Conventions are so different for quotes with clauses and phrases that I don't see that kicking in a rejection.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Got my first rejection. It was for punctuation. Yeah I know my grammar isn't where it was 30 years ago when it was all still fresh in my head, so I shouldn't let it bother me. But seeing that word hits you right in the stomach doesn't it.

WellI can only hope to do better next time!
Especially is I enable grammarly again!

You need competent honest beta readers

 

[TxRad]

I checked your story 'Red'. I'm surprised it passed and wasn't rejected.

You left the punctuation off in every dialog line except where it ended the sentence or had a question mark.

"I love you," he said. (Correct)

"I love you" he said. (Not correct)

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

I checked your story 'Red'. I'm surprised it passed and wasn't rejected.

You left the punctuation off in every dialog line except where it ended the sentence or had a question mark.

"I love you," he said. (Correct)

"I love you" he said. (Not correct)

Yep it is in my dialog, always. I forget to put a comma before the end quote.

I asked my friend if I should fix it all and resubmit, or say fuck it...and she said the latter! LOL!!!
But that isn't me. I strive for perfection, so I have fixed it all and resubmitted.

I don't know why but for some reason I always forget that damn comma! If I'm ending a sentence, no problem, but in dialog that comma is nowhere to be found in my writing.

 

[TxRad]

Yep it is in my dialog, always. I forget to put a comma before the end quote.

I asked my friend if I should fix it all and resubmit, or say fuck it...and she said the latter! LOL!!!
But that isn't me. I strive for perfection, so I have fixed it all and resubmitted.

I don't know why but for some reason I always forget that damn comma! If I'm ending a sentence, no problem, but in dialog that comma is nowhere to be found in my writing.

I'm glad it was an easy fix.

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

I actually fixed it, resubmitted it, then decided, fuck it, and deleted it!

They need to make it easier to delete stuff here though. It's easier to submit than to delete stuff!

 

[ElectricBlue]

I actually fixed it, resubmitted it, then decided, fuck it, and deleted it!

They need to make it easier to delete stuff here though. It's easier to submit than to delete stuff!

And now no-one will read it, and your effort has all been wasted.

Sounds to me like you have just punished yourself for not having it "perfect", especially since you did "get it right" eventually. Striving for 100% perfection is a waste of time, there will always be things that you missed. You need attention to detail, but not attention to every detail.

Take a big breath, wait a week or two, and resubmit it. And then move on, write your next one. Say to yourself, my best work is in the future....

 

[Hard_Rom]

Considering erotica can easily become pornography. Which is not overly high-brow an insistence on good grammar seems, to me, to be the way to go. This a literary site. You have to keep standards high. Imagine if they were not. How long before unreadable tripe was the norm? Can you imagine how awful that would be for those who have to approve stories for content? It would be brain numbing!

 

[Areala-chan]

Rejection is something everybody gets hit with. It doesn't mean your story sucks, and it doesn't mean you're a terrible writer. It means there was a rule somewhere that wasn't followed, and you're being given the opportunity to fix your mistake before anyone else notices. How many other areas in life do we wish we had that opportunity, and LIT gives it away for free. You can have a story rejected sixteen times in a row, accepted on the seventeenth, and none of your readers will ever know anything except the date it was published. That's awesome.

Fix your errors, resubmit, and get to work on your next story. Readers don't come here expecting perfection, but they do expect to enjoy the stuff they read. Good grammar fuels that enjoyment by not constantly reminding them that, oh by the way, you're reading a story on the internet.

Anything else isn't just a waste of your time, but a waste of everyone else's. A reader's time is very valuable. Waste it at your peril.

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

And now no-one will read it, and your effort has all been wasted.

Sounds to me like you have just punished yourself for not having it "perfect", especially since you did "get it right" eventually. Striving for 100% perfection is a waste of time, there will always be things that you missed. You need attention to detail, but not attention to every detail.

Take a big breath, wait a week or two, and resubmit it. And then move on, write your next one. Say to yourself, my best work is in the future....

But I have to strive for perfection. I will never get there, but I will try and try and will destroy anything that I perceive not to be perfect.
I also sew. I sell stuff on etsy. But if I think something isn't perfect, I destroy it. I either toss it in a pile of 'this will never see the light of day again' or just cut it up into a million pieces.
Why?
My mom. I was never good enough, or never did anything right in her eyes. And now still at the age of 49 I strive for perfection. Not for her these days, I pretend she doesn't exist, but it's so engrained in my head that I have to be perfect or it's not worth doing.
And that's what happens when you grow up with a narcissistic mother.

Considering erotica can easily become pornography. Which is not overly high-brow an insistence on good grammar seems, to me, to be the way to go. This a literary site. You have to keep standards high. Imagine if they were not. How long before unreadable tripe was the norm? Can you imagine how awful that would be for those who have to approve stories for content? It would be brain numbing!

I agree.
Like with texting and even Facebook posts these days. I refuse to talk to anyone that can't spell out words, or use punctuation. U does not equal you in my book. And I'm not even sure what UR is supposed to be. You're? Your? You are? Errrr?

They don't even teach cursive in schools now. When that happened I knew it was all beginning and the dumbing down was starting.

 

[sharingfantasies]

They don't even teach cursive in schools now. When that happened I knew it was all beginning and the dumbing down was starting.

There are still some states that require teachers to teach cursive such as California and Massachusetts. The problem I see is that teaching cursive correctly takes a lot of time, and most teachers just give kids a book or worksheet and tell them to do it at home. You can't learn cursive correctly on your own, but with testing being done on computers, many teachers put an emphasis on keyboarding over handwriting. I actually sent out a letter with the address written clearly in cursive and the envelope was returned as insufficient information. All the information was there, I suspect the person delivering the mail couldn't read the cursive.

 

[Hard_Rom]

I was taught cursive but now am shyte at it. I took drafting in high school and have almost always used drafting style Gothic printing.

My mum's cursive looked pretty but was almost unreadable.

For my generation you can tell who took drafting at school and who did not. If you study drafting, the old school way with T-squares, set squares and compasses, it becomes natural to use drafting style Gothic text. Cursive and lower case letters are for non-drafting students.

I'm almost as shyte at lower case letters as cursive.

 

[ElectricBlue]

But I have to strive for perfection. I will never get there, but I will try and try and will destroy anything that I perceive not to be perfect.
I also sew. I sell stuff on etsy. But if I think something isn't perfect, I destroy it. I either toss it in a pile of 'this will never see the light of day again' or just cut it up into a million pieces.
Why?
My mom. I was never good enough, or never did anything right in her eyes. And now still at the age of 49 I strive for perfection. Not for her these days, I pretend she doesn't exist, but it's so engrained in my head that I have to be perfect or it's not worth doing.
And that's what happens when you grow up with a narcissistic mother

I understand that, but maybe, just maybe, 98% - 99% gets you there. Prove your mom wrong by saying, "look ma, people are reading my work. See, I CAN do it!"

 

[Hypoxia]

I was taught cursive but now am shyte at it. I took drafting in high school and have almost always used drafting style Gothic printing.
<...>
For my generation you can tell who took drafting at school and who did not. If you study drafting, the old school way with T-squares, set squares and compasses, it becomes natural to use drafting style Gothic text. Cursive and lower case letters are for non-drafting students.

I'm almost as shyte at lower case letters as cursive.

My story also except that I'm okay with lowercase. But script? It's a blur, reserved for illegible signatures. Whereas Dad was trained (Depression-era) in Palmer cursive and had it down to spidery perfection. I found Drafting Gothic very handy when i drew flowcharts and filled-in COBOL and JCL coding forms at the big IBM shop.

ObTopic: Oh, why bother? USA just rejected sanity tonight. But I won't go there.

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

I understand that, but maybe, just maybe, 98% - 99% gets you there. Prove your mom wrong by saying, "look ma, people are reading my work. See, I CAN do it!"

She would look at the ratings that are not that good and say, You should be embarrassed by those ratings.

Really she is a horrible person and even though I no longer talk to her, don't care what she thinks about me and how I'm doing in life, it now bothers me if I do something and it isn't perfect. I'm working on it, but it's a slow process.

 

[oggbashan]

There is no such thing as a perfect story.

We try, try, and try again but the only perfect story is the one in your head that never turns out right when you start to write it.

If authors only ever published perfect stories we would have no literature at all.

All we can do is our best, and try to do better next time.

And then the next one is shit!

 

[Handley_Page]

I was taught cursive but now am shyte at it. I took drafting in high school and have almost always used drafting style Gothic printing.

I found Drafting Gothic very handy when i drew flowcharts and filled-in COBOL and JCL coding forms at the big IBM shop.

ObTopic: Oh, why bother? USA just rejected sanity tonight. But I won't go there.

I'd be very interested to know more about what you guys call "Gothic".

"But I have to strive for perfection. I will never get there, but I will try and try and will destroy anything that I perceive not to be perfect. "


This might be pertinent: Grow the Roses.